Moving tech to right of political spectrumJoe Garofoli, SFGate, Hearst Communications, 04/08/14
“But other digital strategists warn that this outreach has to be more than translating tech-speak or playing with the latest digital tools. “You can have the best tools, but if the candidate isn’t any good, then it really doesn’t matter,” said David Almacy, former White House Internet and digital communications director for President George W. Bush. Another challenge, according to Almacy: Campaigns must have their digital presence ready to go within just weeks. To address that, the GOP is trying to identify and vet a number of digital consultants who can help with campaigns in the next couple of years.”

Panelists: Hill’s Got a Ways to Go on Understanding Tech Tools, PolicyAlex Byers, Erin Mershon, Brooks Boliek and Jessica Meyers, Politico Morning Tech, 03/14/14
Lawmakers may have improved their technological prowess but they have a long way to go before Congress can consider itself tech literate, industry representatives and policy experts emphasized last night at a roundtable hosted by the Internet Association and Harvard’s Institute of Politics. Mieke Eoyang, a former staffer for Silicon Valley Rep. Anna Eshoo who’s now with Third Way, said government often fails to reach out to the region about key tech issues. Even as lawmakers jump on Twitter and Facebook, said David Almacy, the White House Internet Director under George W. Bush, Congress still ‘makes the mistake just to push a message but not use these tools to have a conversation.’ And Chris Massey of the popular ride-sharing service Lyft, warned hearings where ‘we’re talking about advancing sharing concepts and members are still talking about Craigslist…will affect legislation going forward.’

PART I: Persuasion and Mobilization
Technology keeps changing but it has always been about people talking to others and sharing opinions, mobile devices changing decision process on purchases, taking advantage of that moment of inquiry online, targeting messages on tv and online, who is persuadable online, and the rise of dual screen usage.

PART II: Rise of Social Media and Dual Screen Usage
Presidential web activities from Clinton to Bush to Obama, Twitter growth in 2012, crowd-sourcing to track election results, value of engaging voters on social nets with examples from Obama/Biden and Romney/Ryan campaigns, and different measures of success on social media.

Will social media influence presidential elections?By Jon Schmid, San Diego Source | The Daily Transcript, 10/24/12
Regarding Twitter @gov charts measuring Tweets per Minute (TPM) during the 2012 presidential & vice presidential debates: “There’s no breakdown on sentiment. It’s just measuring quantity,” said David Almacy, senior vice president, digital strategies, Edelman PR, and former White House Internet and e-communications director under former President George W. Bush.

Social Media & The Presidential ElectionBy Andrew Meranus, PR Newswire, 10/17/12
Regardless of one’s political affiliation or interest in political discourse, it is virtually impossible to not be aware of how social media is playing a role in politics and driving forward the messages in the upcoming presidential election. For the first time in a presidential campaign, Twitter and YouTube usage and engagement have virtually skyrocketed in the sheer number of tweets, re-tweets, followers, and postings about the campaign and recent debates.

How to Market the Next PresidentBy Liza Porteus Viana, Mashable, 10/2/12
“I think there has been a traditional narrative that 2008 was the preeminent campaign and that Democrats owned the world in social media,” says Almacy. “I’m not sure I would fully agree with that. I think they had an upper hand and used that pretty effectively. I think what we’ve seen this year is a real leveling of that.”

Congress’s ‘socially awkward’ phaseBy Lisa Desjardins, CNN Radio, 9/26/12
“It’s interesting because we expect these people to be experts in something that is roughly 5 years old, you know,” said David Almacy, who was the White House internet and e-communications director under President George W. Bush and is now a senior vice president at the Edelman public relations firm.

Can Facebook maintain its value as a public company?By Doug McKelway, Fox News, 5/18/12
Special Report with Bret Baier (Shannon Bream)
“The Internet is moving so quickly and technology is advancing so what might be applicable today in terms of data information sharing might be totally irrelevant a year or two years from now. … I think Facebook has actually taken privacy very seriously. This is one of their core success measures. If they don’t get this right, then people will cease to use it.”

Morning Bell: President MeBy Rory Cooper, The Heritage Foundation, The Foundry, 5/16/12
Former White House Internet Director David Almacy explained to The Heritage Foundation that under Bush, this editing practice would have been unthinkable, saying: “It was our intent to preserve the history of the White House as an institution as well as those who served as president from a non-partisan historical perspective.” Almacy added: “It was ingrained in Bush Administration staffers from day one that our time in service to our nation was a privilege and that we must separate political promotion from the institution as a whole.

The Tonya Hall Show with Brian ReichKRCN Radio, Denver, CO, 5/11/12
“The campaigns are crafting their messages and what they want to talk about and then there’s a reaction to that. At the same time, because the Internet has sort of leveled the playing field, people are rising up and saying, ‘Here are the issues that we care about.’ If you have groups of people who rise up and are loud enough via these channels, and if the campaigns are doing their jobs and monitoring and listening to what people are saying, then eventually those sorts of conversations can bubble up to larger channels whether they be mainstream media … some of the blogs or other online outlets who are covering politics. … There are things that people want to talk about and there are things that campaigns want to talk about and somewhere in between there, social media serves as sort of a mediator between both.”
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Polioptics: Episode 53SiriusXM POTUS Ch.124, 4/21/12Almacy: “The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) had specific requirements according to the Presidential Record Act, that anything that’s published on behalf of the White House must be preserved for all time. … So, when we were done, we literally unplugged the server and actually, my good friend Rob Klause was in charge of the transition of the website. So, literally he unplugged one server and turned the other server on — on Inauguration Day. I was standing in the hangar at Andrews Air Force Base when former President Bush was going home to Texas and President Obama was being sworn-in. I had my BlackBerry and I hit refresh and I saw the old website of WhiteHouse.gov and suddenly the new website for President Obama came up, and I tell you — I got a little emotional. It was a really cool moment.”Arun Chaundry: “I love that image as the new peaceful transition between two administrations is now a redesign on the website.”
AUDIO: Polioptics: Episode 53
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Congressional Use of TwitterFox News: America’s News HQ with Shannon Bream, 4/15/12
Members of Congress are capitalizing on social media by using Twitter to communicate with constituents in their home states. That doesn’t always make them an expert at tweeting. Former White House Internet and e-communications director, David Almacy, joined Shannon Bream to talk about those who get it right, and those who … well, have some issues. … Almacy says the best practices to get people to notice tweets are to be authentic, tweet in real time, create links and other multimedia, and of course use #hashtags.

Recall efforts take over social media, Web:
Parties use digital tactics to zero in on core votersBy Alex Morrell, Green Bay Press-Gazette, 12/8/11
“More and more people are going online to find information, and I think one of the advantages of improved and increasing technology is the ability to reach people on a very microtargeted level,” said David Almacy, a senior vice president at a public relations firm in Washington, D.C., and the White House Internet director from 2005-2007. “The ability to get your message out in a targeted way is really where the value comes in.” … The rise in digital campaigning — more precise and significantly less expensive — will not necessarily mean fewer television and radio campaign ads. Almacy said it shouldn’t be an either-or choice, but rather smart campaigns will embed digital strategies with what they already do. “Any campaign who is not leveraging digital, whether it is Google, or social media or social networking, is missing I think an opportunity to reach a core voter block,” Almacy said. “We’re not saying online replaces radio, replaces television. But basically your campaign should be integrated so that you are hitting folks within all those channels.”

Election process bolstered by maturing social media effortsBy Michelle Lodge, PRWeek, 8/1/11 (Subscription)
Social media is not new to the presidential race, but elevating the way it’s used to garner better information and more targeted results is. “It’s not what’s new,” explains David Almacy, SVP, Edelman Digital, based in Washington, DC, “but how to use existing tools in new, more mature ways.” Lane Bailey, president of public affairs at GolinHarris, agrees. “There will be a refinement of the use of analytical modeling,” he notes, to identify and target voters based on their voting records and preferences. From there, he adds, political campaigns can send customized messages to voters via social media and other platforms to speak with voters in their own language. … American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, for which GOP strategist Karl Rove is an adviser, is aiming to raise $120 million for the 2012 elections and will dedicate a larger percentage to online advertising than it did in the 2010 midterms, says Jonathan Collegio, the organizations’ communications director. … Collegio agrees with Almacy and Bailey that the next year in politics will be one of increasingly targeted campaigning, which will employ social media, but with a new maturity designed for more effective results.

White House masters Wild WebBy Abby Phillip, Politico, 5/2/11
“It used to be that you never pick fights with people who buy ink by the barrel. That playing field has been leveled,” said David Almacy, who was the Internet director for President George W. Bush. “The perspective of the beholder is now able to be communicated and disseminated very quickly online. If you’re not optimizing the Web to make sure that your side of the story is getting out, then you’re missing out on an opportunity.”

Barack Obama’s shadow – the man who films the presidentBy Rajini Vaidyanathan, BBC News, 4/22/11
David Almacy, who was the White House internet director under President George W. Bush, argues that while the idea of West Wing Week is “intriguing”, it is an unnecessary expense. … “It is taxpayer funded and the videographer has the ability to take scenes and edit them the way they wish, and when you have a White House press corps that’s a hundred of feet away from the Oval Office,” he says. … “The videographer is a federal employee, the power of editing could cause some concerns about perceived propaganda. … “With average views between 5,000 and 10,000 for most West Wing Weeks (with a few exceptions), one could argue that the costs associated with producing the weekly instalments aren’t providing much value to citizens, especially in tough economic times when Congress and the White House are looking for ways to cut the budget,” adds Mr. Almacy. … That is a sentiment felt by some White House correspondents, who believe that Mr. Chaudhary gets access and notification of some events that they are not invited to.

Congressional Transparency: The Camera EyeBy Chad Pergram, Fox News, The Speaker’s Lobby, 7/16/10
David Almacy is an expert on the confluence of politics and new media. He served as the first internet guru at the White House under President Bush. He says that the most blunt discussions are never publicized. “Sometimes I refer to this as the paradox of transparency,” said Almacy, “Once the camera’s turned on and the people in the room know that the cameras are on the conversation obviously changes.”

Techno-GOP: Web-savvy is no longer a monopoly of the political leftBy Mary Katharine Ham, The Weekly Standard, 4/26/10
Developers dedicated to the conservative cause are hard to find, said David Almacy, former White House Internet director under George W. Bush, which means Republican candidates pay more for expertise than opponents. The same holds true for graphic designers, but Almacy says the outlook is improving. Some hope the rise of fiscal issues (and relative decline of social issues) will help attract more libertarian programmers and tech-savvy young people.

CNN Radio: ‘Golden Age’ of political social media?By Bob Costantini, CNN Political Ticker, 4/22/10
“If you look at these types of sites, the last thing we need to do is start creating these networks all over again because it is pretty time-consuming,” says David Almacy, the White House Internet Director for much of former President Bush George W. Bush’s second term. … Now a senior vice president at Edelman Communications, Almacy said that he worries some new “fad” for communicating a political message might come along forcing campaigns to start from scratch, which he said could frustrate supporters who are comfortable with the current online networking tools. … He thinks the major sites have not matured completely, but are well established and useful enough that “we’re on the cusp of it coming into more of a ‘Golden Age'” with less need for something new to engage voters and activists.

The Evolution of WhiteHouse.govBy Jeremy Jacobs, Politics Magazine, 4/19/10
When George W. Bush took office, the website adapted, adding video like the “Barney Cam” and an “Ask the White House” feature. Almacy said he viewed the website primarily as a tool to disseminate information. “It was not a place for commentary,” he said. Almacy was also limited by several privacy regulations, including a prohibition from linking to anything that didn’t have a “.gov” or “.mil” URL.

Podcast: The Right Doctor with David AlmacyBy Dr. Melissa Clouthier, The Right Doctor, 11/5/09
David Almacy now of Edleman Public Relations as Senior Vice President for Digital Affairs and formerly White House Internet and E Communications Office Director of Media Affairs for President Bush, spoke with me about the White House’s claim that the website the Obama team received was archaic and out-of-date. This simply was not true. As part of the “smoothest transition in history,” President Bush had a brand new website ready for whichever new administration took office.
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Before Drupal, There Was “The Tool”By Nancy Scola, techPresident, 10/30/09
Even smaller than the fraternity of people who have served as President of the United States is the fraternity of those who have served as the Internet Director to the President of the United States. David Almacy is a member of the latter club, having served under President George W. Bush’s tenure, and as we chew over the White House’s recent embrace of the Drupal open-source content management system, Almacy has an invaluable post up walking us back through the history of the online White House, back to the days when there was no content management system to speak of.

White House collects Web users’ data without noticeBy Audrey Hudson, The Washington Times, 9/16/09
David Almacy, who served as President George W. Bush’s Internet director, said the Bush administration did not use the then-fledgling social-networking sites in the same manner as the Obama White House, except to upload presidential speeches onto iTunes. The White House, however, did archive comments posted to its official Web site.

Hackers Imperil Wilson Campaign Web SiteBy Chad Pergram, FOXNews.com, The Speaker’s Lobby, 9/13/09
“It’s like an ‘e-warrior’ kind of politics,” said David Almacy, a senior vice president at Edelman Public Affairs who studies the nexus of technology and government. “There are groups of people who believe that if they can shut down someone’s website, they hurt their ability to campaign.”

Data lags on Obama’s stylish Web siteBy Jon Ward, The Washington Times, 6/23/09
It is a point of pride for the Obama administration that they are more technologically advanced than any previous White House, and they say they are using new media to open up government to regular Americans.

The Twitter Revolt Against Mainstream MediaOpEd by David Almacy and Dave Levy, Edelman Digital Public Affairs, PRWeek, 6/17/09
Among the many Twitter-fueled stories from the event, the one that impacts media coverage the most may be how this backchannel removed the mainstream filter to display an amalgamated concept of the news. It gave the masses – first inside Tehran and then across the world – a crude and easy way to drive the issues that concerned them to the top of the marketplace of ideas.

The Obamas, Living Out LoudBy Jill Lawrence, Politics Daily, www.politicsdaily.com, 5/14/09
It’s easy to make the mistake of believing that the Internet age at the White House started with the Obamas.

Washington’s Tech TitansBy Garrett M. Graff, Washingtonian Magazine, washingtonian.com, 5/1/09
David Almacy, senior vice president, Edelman Public Relations. A new recruit to Michael Krempasky’s talented digital-public-affairs team at Edelman, Almacy is a former White House Webmaster and one of the few people who talk about eGov who have actually done eGov.

Suite TalkBy Jacqueline Klingbeil & Ariel Alexovich, Politico, 4/28/09
David Almacy, who was e-communications director for the Bush White House, has joined Edelman’s Washington office as a senior vice president in its fast-growing, bipartisan digital public affairs practice.

South by Southwest Whitehouse.gov 2.0 SessionBy Sarah Granger, Personal Democracy Forum, 4/10/09
David Almacy emphasized the limitations that whitehouse has in terms of what information they can and cannot publish and that much of the technology and contractors are passed on from administration to administration. As Obama has had problems adjusting to the Bush White House, Bush had problems adjusting to the Clinton White House, and so on… Almacy calls Clinton the “first Internet president” since he put up the first whitehouse.gov, Bush the “first digital president” due to his use of regular online content, and Obama the “first social media president.”

Obama Team Finds It Hard to Adapt Its Web Savvy to GovernmentBy Jose Antonio Vargas, The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com, 3/2/09
The team that ran the most technologically advanced presidential campaign in modern history is finding it difficult to adapt that model to government. WhiteHouse.gov, envisioned as the primary vehicle for President Obama to communicate with the online masses, has been overwhelmed by challenges…

Lessons from ObamaBy Helen Dunne, CorpComms Magazine (UK), 2/18/09
“Certainly, the Obama campaign understood the power of building online community. They used the Internet as an effective communications tool and, of course, to raise money. … Leveraging social media sites like Facebook and Twitter helped connect his supporters but ultimately his election, in my opinion, was more a reflection of the promise of his candidacy rather than just his web presence.”

You don’t have mailBy Mike Madden, Salon, 1/27/09
“What people tend to forget is just how much the Internet has changed in the past two years, let alone the past eight,” Almacy said.

White House Already Well Wired, Bush Staffers SayBy Paul Wagenseil, FOXNews.com, 1/23/09
David Almacy, who ran the whitehouse.gov Web site and was the administration’s Internet and e-communications director from 2005 to 2007, blames simple logistics and red tape for the Obama team’s problems. “Bureaucracy is nonpartisan,” he said. “Moving 3,000 people out and 3,000 people in is a Herculean task.”

Obama Staff Arrives to White House Stuck in Dark Ages of TechnologyBy Anne E. Kornblut, washingtonpost.com, 1/22/09
If the Obama campaign represented a sleek, new iPhone kind of future, the first day of the Obama administration looked more like the rotary-dial past. The system has daunted past White House employees. David Almacy, who became President George W. Bush’s Internet director in 2005, recalled having a week-long delay between his arrival at the White House and getting set up with a computer and a BlackBerry. “The White House itself is an institution that transitions regardless of who the president is,” he said. “The White House is not starting from scratch. Processes are already in place.”

Microsoft Oval Office:
Will President Obama have a personal computer?By Nina Shen Rastogi, Slate, 1/22/09
According to David Almacy, who served as Bush’s director for Internet and e-communications from 2005-07, only two people had access to the iTunes store during that period: Almacy, who had to upload speeches to the site, and the president’s personal aide, so that he could download songs for Bush’s iPod.

The Wired Presidency:
Can Obama Really Reboot the White House?By Evan Ratliff, Wired, 1/19/09
In November, not two weeks after winning the election and still two months from becoming commander in chief, Barack Obama brought the government into the 21st century. Or at least that was what we were told when he released his first Web video address as president-elect.

Obama staff will say cu l8r 2 IMBy Ben Smith, Politico.com, 1/17/09
This is yet another good example of how campaigning and governing online differ. The tools and technology are rapidly increasing inside government, but there are still limitations. Perhaps now some will understand the challenges we faced. It’s clear that the rules need to be changed to keep pace with this ever-changing medium.

What’s Next For Obama’s Wired White House?By Sarah Lai Stirland, National Journal, CongressDaily, 1/12/09
“President Clinton was the first Web President, [George W.] Bush was the first digital president, and President [elect] Obama will be the first social media president,” says David Almacy … who worked as Bush’s White House Internet director until May 2007.

e-Hail To the Chief: Obama Won With Web’s Help.
Now, How to Govern Using That Community?By Jose Antonio Vargas, The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com, 12/31/08
“Clinton was the first Web president. Bush is the first digital president,” says David Almacy, who served as Bush’s Internet director from 2005 to 2007. “Obama is the first online social networking president.” And online social networking is designed to foster a community. For that approach to be effective, WhiteHouse.gov can’t just push information out — it has to pull content in, too. And once it does so, the administration will have to decide whether, when and how to incorporate those voices into its decision-making process.

A ‘Dotcom’ White HouseBy Rajini Vaidyanathan, BBC News, 11/28/08
During Obama’s election campaign he took fundraising and grass roots organizing on the world wide web to a whole new level. But now that he’s won the keys to the White House how will this tech savy leader operate? [ Video ]

White House awaits president 2.0By Savannah Guthrie, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, 11/22/08
Longtime political advisers marveled at the ability of Barack Obama’s campaign to harness the Internet as a fundraising and coalition-building tool. As NBC’s Savannah Guthrie reports, the transition team is hoping to bring their technological touch to the White House. [ Video ]

Under Obama, a newly interactive government?The president-elect aims to use the Internet to make government more participatoryBy Alexandra Marks, Christian Science Monitor, 11/8/08
President Bush took that a step further, turning the White House website into a “repository of all the things the president was doing on that day,” according to David Almacy, who was the White House’s Internet director from 2005 to 2007.

Obama to preside over White House 2.0AFP, 11/8/08
David Almacy, who served as Internet and e-communications director for President George W. Bush, said the Internet is “a very powerful tool in communicating the president’s agenda.” … Almacy, who overhauled whitehouse.gov during his two years in the White House, making it a much more dynamic website, warned though that the Obama administration may find there are limits to how much it can do.

Obama surfs the Web to the White HouseAFP, 11/4/08
Almacy, who brought RSS feeds, email updates, audio podcasts and on-demand video to whitehouse.gov while serving in the Bush White House, said he will be watching with interest what an Obama administration does with the Internet. “It’s a lot more difficult,” he said. “A campaign is centered around one day, you’re pushing to that one day. Government is not focused on one day. It’s more of a long-term approach.”

The new battlegroundBy Erica Iacono, PRWeek, 9/22/08
“What’s changed is how people have used the medium and how the user-generated content [has grown],” he says. “[For] the younger generation… it’s a primary form of communication – whether it’s online or through mobile devices.”

Wanted: A More Digital CongressBy Ariel Alexovich, New York Times: The Caucus, 3/5/08
One of the most successful examples of a government-run Web site is WhiteHouse.gov, said David Almacy, a former Internet director for George W. Bush’s White House. The site gets about 3 to 7 million page views per week, and provides policy information — and the popular Barney Cam holiday videos — to Internet surfers.

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WE’s Almacy offers White House-honed Web savvyPRWeek, 7/2/07
While David Almacy was working for the White House … he displayed an understanding of the blogosphere’s importance, particularly as it related to crisis scenarios, when many inside the Beltway were still wringing their hands about social media.

David Almacy hosts Ask the White HouseWhiteHouse.gov, 3/1/07
Thank you for joining us today to discuss the new design and functionality of WhiteHouse.gov. … In addition, this month marks my two-year anniversary as the White House Internet and E-Communications Director, and it has been an honor to serve President Bush and to communicate his message online. With that, I am happy to answer your questions.

White House 2.0National Journal, Tech Daily Dose, 2/28/07
The White House Web site has a new look this week. Visitors will find an updated design with improved access to information about the president’s speeches, events and policies. … According to White House Web guru David Almacy, the upgrades were made to streamline the code, refresh the design and better highlight features.

Bush: Saddam’s Execution Will Not Stop BloodshedAssociated Press, FoxNews.com, 12/31/06
“The president was pleased with the culmination of the Iraqi judicial process and that justice was done,” White House spokesman David Almacy said, describing Bush’s reaction to learning that the execution was close to being carried out. Bush arose shortly before 5 a.m. CST on Saturday and had a 10-minute phone call about an hour later with Hadley to discuss world reaction to the execution, Almacy said.

The Paradox of PodcastingBy Robert MacMillan, WashingtonPost.com, 8/11/05
“As technology advances, the White House recognizes the importance of providing content in new ways to reach new audiences to communicate the president’s vision,” Almacy said. … Regardless of the current brouhaha over what that vision is, it might be possible to classify the Bush White House as jumping ahead of the curve on technology.

White House Defends Iraq Postwar PlanAssociated Press, 6/13/05
“There was significant post war planning,” said spokesman David Almacy. “More importantly, the memo in question was written eight months before the war began; there was significant post war planning in the time that elapsed. … Some things we prepared for did not happen, like large numbers of refugees needing humanitarian assistance, and others we did not expect, such as large numbers of regime elements fleeing the battlefield only to return later,” said Almacy. “Anytime you go to war you have to be flexible to adapt to the unexpected. That is why we gave our commanders the flexibility to do so.”